While good movies are fortunately still made, I must admit too many new films make me wonder: "All this (special effects, billions of dollars, great actors...) for that result?".
Waching "Kapurush" by Satyajit Ray the other day made me marvel at just the opposite:"How can you make so much with so little?"
Extreme simplicity is a difficult art, only achieved by the greatest directors (Ford, Ozu...). When this simplicity is blended with delicacy, intimacy we reach story-telling and cinema at their best.
On his way to Calcutta, a screenwriter's car breaks down in a small town. He has to spend the night there and is accommodated out of the blue by a well-to-do local tea-planter, a somewhat friendly but also bitter kind of a man.
At this latter's home he is welcomed by the man's wife. Stunning surprise, she is Karuna, his student days' old flame. At that time, he let her down in painful circumstances, thus showing his cowardness. With years, he has understood that she was his one true love and he now thinks a new opportunity is given him by fate to make it up to her and win her back. But things are a bit more complex.
In 69 minutes (one night, one day), Satyajit Ray manages to make us understand the inner turmoil of both characters, the complexity and intensity of their feelings, the passing of time, the unavoidable consequences of our acts and choices. Flash backs are short, efficient, moving like any confrontation with what was, but also what could have been.
Akira Kurosawa once said:"Not having seen a movie by Satyajit Ray is like never having seen the moon or the sun." I guess he was right. Don't be afraid to be moon or sunstruck, watch Kapurush!
